Calabash_Issue 9 Apr. 2014 - Page 23

culture
NRC and restored Stevens to power.
One cannot help pointing out here that
he was convicted and hanged for plotting
against the State in March, 1970 by the man
he had restored to power - a victim of his own
popularity.
50
Dr Siaka Stevens former president of Sierra Leone
1977
The APC won the general Elections with an
overwhelming Majority(APC:74; SLPP:15)
and, a year later ,the government adopted a
new constitution transforming the country
into a One-Party State. All political parties
with the exception of the APC were banned.
This period is what one Sierra Leonean
writer termed ’...the seventeen year plague of
locusts’.
1985
Siaka Stevens retired handing over the reins
of government to his hand-picked successor,
Major General Joseph Saidu Momoh who
again amended the Constitution to return
the country to a multi-party democracy.
1991
A rag-tag group of fighters with no coherent
policy, and calling itself the Revolutionary
United Front (RUF)under the leadership of a
former army corporal named Foday Sankoh,
started attacking and pillaging villages
along the S/Leone-Liberian border.
Former president Alhaji Ahmed Tejan- Kabba and ex president Maada Bio
1992
Young military officers calling themselves
the National Provisional Ruling
Council(NPRC) under the leadership
of Captain Valentine Strasser staged a
coup which drove Momoh into exile in
neighbouring Guinea. This group was no
more successful than the Momoh regime in
halting the rebel incursions or the country’s
descent into a failed State.
1996
Jan: president Ahmed Tejan Kabbah declared
the rebel war over. In May, he won a five
year term in office as an SLPP candidate.
2007
: The Presidential elections held on August
11 saw the candidate of the APC, Ernest Bai
Koroma top the polls with 44.3% of the total
votes cast ; followed by Solomon Berewa of
the SLPP with 38.9% and Charles Margai
Following Parliamentary elections in April,
Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, a Diplomat of 20 years
standing ,was elected to head a civilian
administration.
1997
The short- lived Kabbah regime was
overthrown by Major Johnny Paul Koroma
who later invited Foday Sankoh’s RUF to join
the Government.
1998
In March, ECOMOG forces ousted the AFRC
cabal and reinstated President Kabbah.
1999
The Lome Peace Agreement (in effect a sellout to the RUF) was signed. Sankoh thus
became Vice President of a country he’d been
doing his utmost to destroy.
2000
Captain Valentine Strasser former president
2002
May: Demonstrations against RUF was met
by force and about 20 people lost their lives
Consequently, Sankoh and other senior
RUF members were arrested and relieved
of their positions in the government. In
November of that same year, the Abuja
Accord was signed to facilitate the process
of Demobilization, Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR).
President of Sierra Leone
Dr Ernest Bai Koroma
of the People’s Movement for Democratic
Change ( PMDC with13.9%). As this was
below the 55% required to carry the first
round, a run- off poll was conducted on 17th
September which saw Ernest Bai Korma
going through with a score of 54.6%.
2012
: Parliamentary and Presidential elections are
scheduled for November.
Calabash hopes, better still, has no doubt
these elections will be free and fair. It is
not for nothing that a political analyst and
writer referred to Sierra Leoneans as ‘...the
world’s most resilient people ‘ you know!
Pdc.
issue nine | Calabash Magazine | 21